Today was going to be a good day. I am excited for the Perth College Open Day tomorrow (like how I slipped that in there? More later.) and my Orthodontist appointment was over so I no longer had to worry about it. But a few things made my day even better… Firstly, in music I finally understood how to play a song that I had been struggling with. For me, this is ace because I want to do well in this subject and it stresses me out a lot when I just can’t grasp something. Then, in English I got my Personal/Reflective essay back and passed it at Higher Standard. Woop! I think it might have been a NAB because we didn’t get grades. Just a pass or a fail. So I am so thankful for that..! English is flipping hard. Then… then… in Art I have been working on a piece and it was seriously going horrifically. We had our reviews and the standard of my work was not at all Higher level. Then, I started this piece again, I have been going to the Art Department in my free periods and now its competing with one of the best Higher Art pieces in the department. Oh yeeea! I don’t usually brag about stuff like this but I am kinda proud of it because I really was struggling. It shows though that extra time and hard work pays off. A picture of it will be at the bottom of this blog post.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering where this sudden Perth College Open Day came from. Well, basically, I am planning on applying for German at a couple of universities and Music at some colleges. I mean, I’m applying for German because thats ‘my subject’ if you know what I mean. Like, some people are associated with being good at sciences or maths or English or art but I am good at German. However, it isn’t exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life. I enjoy it (most of the time) and I’m good at it but I actually want to study Music much, much more. So, I am going to Perth College Open Day because they have one of the best Music programs in the UK and I am hoping I will fall in love with it so that I will have even more motivation for it. I spend a lot of my free periods in the music department. I love going into a practice room and being able to just play and sing between classes. Sometimes I don’t feel particularly productive but I always want to go to the music department. That’s the thing about music. There isn’t a lot I can do in any mood I’m in but with music, I can be happy, sad, disappointed or confused but I’ll still always go back to my little practice room. I am gradually gaining confidence though, so this is good. Yesterday at youth group I sat, played guitar and sang for ages. People were walking past and around me and singing with me and I didn’t seem to mind. So we are getting somewhere. I would never have been able to do that a few months ago. Slowly but surely 😉 Anyway, back to Perth. Tomorrow I have the day off school to take a train down to the college. I have a tun of homework to do on the train or if I get there early (which I most likely will because I gave myself 2 hours to get from the train station to the college. It takes half an hour to walk to the college. Lol!) I am so excited and nervous! I will also post some pictures of the college so you can see! 🙂

Yesterday we talked about, as the title says, being a life long learner. To learn from something what do you need to do first? Make a mistake right? So, God designed us to keep growing in our faith, to learn more about God and learn from our mistakes.

Are you more adapted to the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of the World? When we give our hearts to God, we adapt to the Kingdom of God. When you make mistakes, what did you learn? When you stop learning, you stop growing. We are designed to discover more about Gods plans for humanity. For us. To learn that, we make mistakes.

Trial and error will allow you to grow. We need to make room for both. A man once said: ‘Love God and sin boldly.’

Sounds weird right? If we love God and want to grow we will make mistakes. If we’re afraid of making mistakes then we might not be able to love God fully. Proverbs 14:4:‘Without Oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.’

Making mistakes gives you experience. It doesn’t make you wiser. Its reflection of your mistakes that brings you insight. It takes time and reflection to correct wrong perspectives and redefine life’s priorities.

We can be fearful to try again if we make mistakes. But this makes us live cautiously. At church, in activities, in relationships.But if you never try it, you’ll never know. We can’t afford to live cautiously in such a fast world. People are loosing their hope, their joy, their faith. Jesus Christ is the answer. We should learn what makes Jesus known in this world, we can’t live cautiously to do this. Don’t be afraid of your mistakes. Learn everything you can with them.

Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Take regular checkups on yourself. 2 Corinthians 13:5-9‘Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surly you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith. As you test yourselves, I hope you will recognize that we have not failed the test of apostolic authority. We pray to God that you will not do what is wrong by refusing our correction. I hope we won’t need to demonstrate our authority when we arrive. Do the right things before we come – even if that makes it look like we have failed to demonstrate our authority. For we cannot oppose the truth, we must always stand for the truth.’

Learn to face the truth, no matter how painful it will be. You can’t move on unless your courageous enough to face the truth and do something about it. the truth will set you free. It can make you miserable. We don’t like that idea. But its worse to hold onto false hoods. You won’t change unless you are miserable enough to do so. When you look at it face on, it changes you. We have an inversion as human beings to correction. Correction seems like personal failure. Nothing can we further from the truth. We need to make the necessary corrections – A discovery of mere potential.

Its all about faith. There more to come. We are to courageously face our corrections. We are called to be a team of surgeons. To look what is causing the problem. To restore the patient to health. Take the time to learn more about yourself. Don’t be afraid to dig deep. You find treasures when you dig deep. You find the plan that God has for your life. We should live a life of adventure and discovery. To become more like Him.

Today at church the sermon was about going deeper in our relationship with God. Like, not just knowing about Him but actually knowing Him intimately. Before all this, I realized that the lady preaching was Bubbles The Clowns Wife. Now, Bubbles the Clown was a re-occurring face in all children’s child hoods if they lived at least in Inverness. After all the excitement, we got to the important part, the actual sermon 😀

Did you know, God longs to have a personal relationship with us. I guess it does seem hard when we’ve never sat in a cafe and talked for hours with the person to actually get to know them. But intimacy is much more than just being familiar with someone. Intimacy takes time.

We need to develop trust with people before we share our life with them right? Well, the basis of intimacy with God is knowing who we are and knowing who He is.

We need to know who we are. Sometimes we don’t feel loved and we don’t know what to do. But, we belong to God. We are His! All through the bible, God says He is our King and we are His children. God longs for an intimate relationship.

When I was younger, I thought that being made in the image of God meant that we look exactly like Him. I was always confused by why everybody looked different 😀 Then I realized that it meant we have qualities that God has too. Like, being loving and caring and creative and knowledgeable. We sometimes become what other people want us to be. We become what the most important person in our lives wants us to be. Now, this is fine if God is the most important in your life but for others, other people may be more important and therefore we will listen to them instead of God. We forget what God wants. We can’t please everybody all the time. Most of us don’t need everybody to love us but we just want someone to value us.In this world, we are judged by our performance. If we’re not good enough, we’re out.

How do we have an intimate relationship with God? If you only know about God then you don’t know Him. His purpose in sending Jesus was so He can restore the intimate relationship. He is an example of what we should be like. He shows us the way. With God, we can become what we are meant to be.

He is our Father. He wants to see us grow into everything He wants us to be. He is our King. He is the King of all Kings. He is our Friend. He no longer calls us servants, but friends. He wants to hang out with us, to spend time with us. He wants us to share with Him when we are annoyed, sad, disappointed, joyful or happy and what our hopes and dreams are. He is our Lover. God is love. He can be trusted. He has a plan for us. Nothing surprises Him. Nothing can turn Him away from us. He is Faithful. He is true and won’t let us down. He is Just. He fights against evil but always acts in love. He is Good. All things work together for good for those who love Him. When we grasp His goodness, we realize His glory.He is Generous. His love knows no bounds. He can do more than we could ever imagine. He is fun and He wants to eat with us.

That sounds like someone I’d want to hang out with anyway 😉

The more we discover of who God is, the more we reflect of who the image of God is. Who are we? We are His.